Supreme Court to Hear Case of Christian Baker’s Refusal to Make Wedding Cake for Same-Sex Couple

Jun 27, 2017

ICC Note: As previously reported, a same-sex couple approached Jack Phillips of Colorado’s Masterpiece Cakeshop in 2012, requesting that he create their wedding cake. On account of his religious convictions, Phillips declined their request which soon led the couple to file a complaint under Colorado’s anti-discrimination law. Now, the United States Supreme Court, the highest court in the nation, has announced that they will hear the case, likely beginning in the fall.

06/26/2017 United States (Fox News) – The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday it will hear the case of a suburban Denver baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple on faith-based grounds, in the latest religious freedom case to be considered before the nation’s highest court.

Jack Phillips, owner of Masterpiece Cakeshop, had refused to sell a customized cake for a gay couple’s union, claiming a religious exemption to the state’s anti-discrimination law.

State courts had ruled against the businessman.

The high court will now decide whether applying Colorado’s public accommodations law to compel the baker to create “expression”– a wedding cake — violates his constitutionally protected Christian beliefs about marriage.

Phillips told the Supreme Court he has free speech and religious rights under the First Amendment that should protect him. He said he should not be compelled to bake a cake specifically to honor a same-sex marriage.

Colorado’s anti-discrimination law, though, protects people on the basis of their sexual orientation. Charlie Craig and David Mullins had filed a complaint against Phillips and his suburban Denver shop after Phillips said he would not create and decorate a cake in honor of their marriage.

Colorado did not permit same-sex couples to marry until 2014. Two years earlier, Craig and Mullin were planning to fly to Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage was legal, and host a reception in Denver upon their return to Colorado. They wanted a cake for the occasion.